Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Holly snorted. “Yeah, right. Good one.”

“I’m dead serious. My crew will stay at the motel, but my assistant and I will need to be on the premises. I can’t be running back and forth into town all the time. It’s in the contract. Didn’t you read it?”

Holly’s jaw clenched. Her T-shirt was wet in patches, and her skin had been ice-cold each time he’d touched it. Connor was irritated to discover he was having a hard time focusing on the contract negotiations when all he wanted to do was warm her up a bit.

“You can’t live with us for weeks at a time!” Holly cried, her face pale. “No way! Get a trailer!”

Connor sighed. It would have been so much easier if she were eager to have answers, like some of his previous clients. One couple had even offered him their own bed, which he’d politely declined. Access to the Celeste house would have also meant easy access to the basement and the attic, to possible hidden records or other clues. A trailer was better than nothing—at least he could stay on the premises as late as he needed—but it wasn’t ideal.

“The house is huge,” he said with as much reason as he could inject in his voice. “Surely there is a spare room.”

Holly darted forward and snatched his hand, did a weird reverse shake, and pushed it away. “I take back my handshake. The deal is off.”

“You can’t take back a handshake. The hand has been shaken.”

“Oh, I can, and I have. It’s now unshaken.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It’s a trailer or nothing, and you’re lucky I’m agreeing to that. It’s bad enough you’re going to be snooping around our property at all hours. You can’t be in our house too.”

“Fine,” Connor snapped, “but these negotiations are feeling very one-sided.”

She shrugged, entirely unconcerned. If he hadn’t wanted this gig so badly, he might have given up on her when she sent Kevin and Mark packing, but he did want this mystery, and damned if she wasn’t already using that against him.

When she’d demanded that she take part in the investigation, he’d been knocked off kilter for a moment, but when she’d explained that she wanted to control the narrative, it had made sense. She was so protective over the farm that, now that he thought about it, he would have been surprised if she hadn’t asked.

Sorry, demanded .

The agreement worked out perfectly for him. More time with Holly meant more opportunities to gently probe about the other odd happenings at Wicked Good Apples.

Someone rapped on the door, and a moment later Charlotte wedged her way into the room, forcing Holly forward so that she had to stand beside him. Connor caught a whiff of berries and mint in her dark hair. His last girlfriend had used salon-sanctioned shampoo that cost three hundred dollars a bottle, and wouldn’t touch anything without a designer label—Holly had been right about that. And yet Holly, who used Christmas shampoo in May and wore a ten-year-old high school T-shirt, was somehow more intriguing than his ex had ever been.

“I heard shouting,” Charlotte purred as she shook out her Hello Kitty umbrella and leaned it against the wall. She’d taken out her pigtails and had coiled her hair into a dozen tiny buns all over her head.

Bullshit, Connor thought. There was no way she’d heard them in her cabin through the thundering rain. She’d seen Holly enter and had been nosy was more like it.

Charlotte waved her hand, flashing a lime-green manicure. “Hi, I’m Charlotte Hernandez, Connor’s assistant and right-hand woman. Grimm Reality wouldn’t be a success without my tireless behind-the-scenes work, but do I get any credit for that?”

Connor snorted. “Yes, you do actually. You insisted your name go first on the end credits, and you named a show episode after yourself, and you made Charlotte’s Pick an annual event.” Charlotte was right when she said the show wouldn’t be a success without her. It was one of the many reasons she brought home the same salary that he and Erikson did.

Charlotte grinned, her eyes twinkling. “Oh yeah.” She returned her focus to Holly, who had a faint look of admiration on her face. “In case you’re wondering, no, Connor and I aren’t sleeping together. He’s like a cranky big brother, and the idea of a sexual relationship with him is repulsive.”

Holly gave an awkward laugh. “I wasn’t going to ask that.”

“Maybe not, but I would hate for anyone to think for even a moment that we were involved in that way .” Charlotte shuddered.

Holly nodded solemnly. “I completely understand.”

Good thing he was a confident man.

Charlotte propped a hand on her hip. “You must be Holly Celeste.”

“I am.”

“Well, Holly, Connor’s a pretty busy guy, so if you ever have any questions about coordination, what part of the property is being used, what the filming schedule is, or anything else, I’m your girl. I know Connor’s life better than he does. For example,” she said, turning to him, “your ex called, and she wants a one-time emotional damage payment for the night she thought you were going to propose, but you broke up with her instead.”

Connor briefly closed his eyes. “If Lisa wants to talk to me, she has my number.”

“Oh, it wasn’t Lisa. It was Juliette.”

Holly gazed up at him with an unreadable look in her eye. She probably thought he was some shallow TV personality sleeping with and discarding women like a B-list actor, when the truth was he’d only had two girlfriends in the past five years, and neither relationship had lasted longer than six months. It seemed women didn’t love coming in second to Grimm Reality .

Connor gave Charlotte a speaking glare. Charlotte pressed her finger to her lips. “Got it,” she stage-whispered. She took out her phone and began typing into her notes app, speaking out loud as she did. “Do not talk about former girlfriends in front of cute new client.”

Connor was going to kill her.

Holly edged around Charlotte. “Thanks for calling me cute, Charlotte, but don’t worry about it. I have zero interest in Connor’s private life. I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

Before Connor could say anything else, Holly had slipped out the door.

“What the hell, Charlotte?” he snarled the moment the latch clicked.

“I did it for your own good, Boss.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I took one look at her and knew she was trouble, so I thought I’d head off anything before it had a chance to start. She’s no Lisa or Juliette. She probably has feelings and shit.”

Connor was offended. “ I have feelings.”

Charlotte scowled at a water stain on the front of the mini fridge. “No, you don’t; you’re in show business. Even if you did, it doesn’t matter: you move every few weeks, and sometimes you’re on location for a month or more. Until Grimm Reality is canceled, you are a relationship no-go. Besides, we still don’t know what’s going on in those orchards, and you don’t want to mess that up by making questionable personal choices.”

She was right, as usual.

Connor pushed aside thoughts of Holly’s berry shampoo and strode to his laptop. “I’ll send you the terms of the contract, and we need to get two trailers out to Wicked Good Apples pronto. It’s time to find out what’s really happening on that farm.”

Missy, Winter, and Holly stood on the porch and watched as a truck backed a second streamlined trailer onto the grassy lawn that separated the house and the Golden Delicious orchard.

“I can’t believe he’s actually staying on premises,” Winter said. Her curly red hair was pulled into a low ponytail, and a pair of work gloves was tucked into the back pocket of her jeans. “That’s some dedication. I would’ve bet serious money he was one of those hosts that only shows up for pretend interviews.”

“No, he’s the real deal.” Holly’s stomach sank as she watched Connor motion the truck farther back. He was wearing paint-stained jeans, worn work boots, and another plain T-shirt—this one forest green. The early dawn light cast a golden outline around his body, making him look far more angelic than Holly knew he was.

Missy sighed. “He’s such a ten.”

“Is that why you squeezed into that dress this morning?” Winter asked, eyeing the knitted violet dress Missy had wriggled into the moment she’d heard the trucks arrive.

“Um, duh, but also I’m going on Cherry and Derek’s morning show to announce that we’re Grimm Reality ’s newest filming location. I thought I’d begin drumming up some publicity straight away.”

Holly silently groaned. There was no restraining Missy now. Soon people would begin stopping by, not to buy apples or taste cider like the apple farm needed, but to gawk at the film crews. Holly hoped that was the only attention she and her sisters would draw.

Connor and the truck driver unhitched the trailer, and Connor waved at the sisters. Missy and Winter waved back, but Holly only glared.

“You’re not usually so cranky,” Winter commented when she noticed Holly’s expression. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t trust him.”

Missy ran her fingers through her moussed hair. “You worry too much. This kind of exposure is just what this old apple farm needs. I’m sick of living in the shadows.”

“Those shadows have kept us alive.”

“I don’t know, Holly. Are we living?”

Before Holly could answer, Winter tugged her work gloves from her pocket and slapped them against her palm. “I need to prune the trees in the back orchard. I could use some help.”

“Um, hello? I have an interview to do, remember? I can’t get this dirty.” Missy waved her hands over her tight plum dress and sky-high heels. She did look amazing. Of the three sisters, she was the only one who could really pull off an outfit like that.

“I’ll help,” Holly said. They all knew it was going to be her anyway. “I have to spend an hour with the accounts, but then I’ll be out.”

Winter nodded and clomped off the porch. Missy followed with a cute little run, her heels clipping on the weathered boards with quick taps. Holly pressed her fingers to her eyes and took two deep breaths. When she dropped them, Connor was watching her with a gaze that saw far too much.

Having him here was a mistake. He was an observer of human nature, and he was likely to learn just as much about the Celestes by watching them interact as he was the “ghost” in the orchards.

Trouble, trouble, on the double, Holly thought with a frown, and went inside.